


Forgiveness

by Rocky_T



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 09:20:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17485469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocky_T/pseuds/Rocky_T
Summary: Episode addition to Season 7 "Repression."





	Forgiveness

It was a day like any other for _Voyager_ 's busy captain. Between staff meetings, departmental inspections, a full duty shift on the bridge, and several hours in her Ready Room reading reports, she'd hardly had a free moment all day. Even during the brief interval when she'd stopped by the Mess Hall to grab a hurried lunch, she'd been busy with ship's business, listening to Neelix's quick update on the status of food stocks and figuring out how much longer they could go on without another foraging expedition. By the time she was ready to call it a day and stop for the night, she was tired. Too tired to think, in fact.

That was the whole idea.

She didn't want to have to think about the recent events, about the mutiny. The mutiny her Maquis crew, under some sort of bizarre mind control that defied all logic, had instigated. And they _were_ her crew, she thought fiercely, despite what Chakotay had said. All 140 people on board _Voyager_ , irrespective of how they got there, were part of her crew, and consequently, her responsibility.

She went through her bedtime routine mechanically, forcing herself to concentrate on details like the temperature of the water in her bath, the scent of her shampoo, the feel of the rough terry cloth against her skin. She also didn't want to think about how security measures had failed _once again_ , enabling a small number of people to take over the entire ship. She didn't want to think about how it felt to be thrown into her own brig, to have her oldest friend take aim at her head with a phaser, and fire. And to know that it was at the instigation of the man she considered her closest friend on board, the man who once (still?) loved her.

That was the worst thing of all.

Afterwards, after he'd said, "I suppose you want your ship back", she'd brushed right by him. She didn't want to hear his apology, see the look of regret on his face, listen to his plea for forgiveness. She knew it wasn't his fault. Logically speaking, it was the fault of a deranged Bajoran vedek thousands of light years removed from _Voyager_ and her day-to-day existence. And the fault of Starfleet for allowing said deranged vedek to access the monthly datastream and set the events in motion.

She was tired of trying to rationalize it all.

Lying in bed with the lights off, she knew all the arguments, had gone through them already. And she knew life would go on again, somehow. She'd do her best not to let any of this affect her dealings with her security chief and first officer, not wonder if Chakotay unconsciously _did_ harbor a desire to take over her ship, not worry about another mutiny. The time for all that had long since passed. Maybe in the first couple of years of their journey, when they were still subject to attack by the Kazon and the Vidiians, when Seska still loomed as a threat, when survival was not something to be taken for granted. Not now, when the ship was no longer isolated, when "home" was no longer a far-off goal, but a definite possibility that would soon be realized.

It was time to move on.

Her door signal sounded. She knew who it would be, could envision the expression he would have on his face, hear the words that he would say. She got up and went to the door.

"Kathryn, I---"

"Shh," she said, laying her fingers against his tortured lips, forestalling any further comment. "It's all right. I understand. And it doesn't matter." She smiled sadly. "By next week, we'll have forgotten all about it."


End file.
